Pages

face on a stick, flowers, dancing...must be a wedding!

So the wedding: you guys, the wedding was awesome. Kristen was engaged for almost 1.5 years and her planning skillz made mine look like baby-stuff. Case in point: her itinerary was 5 pages long, mine was a little note card. Her monogram was literally everywhere, tiny details were sprouting up at every corner and there was not a detail missed along the way. Wow, that girl loved wedding planning....a girl after my heart [and yours, I'm sure].

I was a reader in her wedding which meant I had to get to the church early. Which, of course, meant I had ample time to snap a bunch of pictures at the ceremony before the chaos began. I have a thing for mosaics and religious icons are always interesting. Therefore, I like this picture:

Another thing I liked? Her color palette. Technically it was hot pink and black but her bridesmaids bouquets were hiding in a secret room of the church.....I spotted pink and green and immediately thought it was time for a sneaky picture. LOVE these flowers.

So before everyone else arrived, Hannah and I studied our readings. Kim looked on with wise eyes and wished us well. She was really soaking it all in and living in the moment:

Then finally it was time for the beautiful bride to walk down her aisle. I rarely get emotional at weddings but when the bride gets teary eyed it makes it hard, you know?

The ceremony was beautiful and then they sealed it with a kiss:

Off to cocktail hour! Kim enjoyed herself as you can see:

The reception was at a fabulous country club and we took advantage of the glorious weather on the patio before dinner.

Upon arriving to our dinner table we saw that Kristen, once again, outdid herself with decorating. Just look at these adorable place settings:

Oh, and her bridal bouquet was a highlight for me, too.

The head table? Stunning:

I was getting all artsy with the pretty candlelight and my 1.8 lens. That would be my cranberry and vodka which I thought fit the pink theme nicely, no?

So as you can see, Kim was a total hit. I am not joking when I say I might have 100 pictures of people with Kim. Here are some of the two of us as Nate played with shutter speed. I have to call him out and say that he gave up on the 'manual' setting really quickly and chose the easy 'auto' within about two tries. Also, as the lights got dimmer and dimmer we were FORCED to use our crappy built-in flash. I hate the stupid flash but could not manage without it. Oh, if only my new tripod fit nicely into my suitcase....next time, my friends.

So yeah, I didn't want to give into the flash just yet [but that's just me being stubborn]. So when everyone got these awesome fiber optic wands for Kristen and Will's first dance, I thought I'd play around a bit. I actually like this one of my crazy hubby:

And although it's far from a technically perfect image [way, way far from it] I really love this one because it is so wild and blurry. It just sums up that moment so nicely, in my opinion. Maybe it gives some of you a headache or a near-seizure. If so, I apologize:

Then this one just freaks me out. There are two of our little bride!!

Again, obviously blurry but kind of artsy, too. I like it:

The new Mrs. and Mrs. with Kim. I'm sure this one will be a framer, don't you think?

To illustrate our friends' obsession with Kim, here is just smattering of my pictures. This is Lindsey with her fiance John....wearing Kim's face as his head. They are getting married in August and I know you can't wait to see their entertaining pictures!

We danced the night away to a fabulous band and even made it up until 3 am. I really don't feel the need to post any pictures beyond this point in the night:

But if you are dying for more you can always go to my Flickr page. I find them all quite interesting but maybe that is because I know my friends. Man, I miss my friends.

And that was wedding #1 for this year. Many more to come. And now that I've purchased a cute clutch purse big enough to hold my camera and TWO lenses [yes, it's a huge clutch] perhaps I will tote the SLR along for the rest of the events. It's just too much fun, really. Except for when I woke up the next morning in a startling panic, worried that I'd lost a lens during the nights' escapades. Of course, I did not but still. It was heart-stopping at the time.

those pics with kim's head are too funny. you are such a great friend to make her feel like she is there.

I saw a girl at dizzy's wedding with one of those flash diffusers as an attachment for the pop up - not part of an external flash. have you seen such a thing? Hers looked homemade out of a film case (like a real film case), but I found one online I might get. just because sometimes you can't avoid the flash...and hopefully it would make things look a little less harsh...

Yes, Jennelle~ Kristen is a big Ascension girl as are many of her bridesmaids. What year did you graduate?

And Little Miss Southern~I didn't use a case at all, just the camera inside my giant clutch [and lens case, of course]. I was just very careful! I think there is a pic of the giant clutch on my flickr stream....in the pew before the ceremony?

Talk about heart stopping. The second I realized I left my 5D's battery and battery charger plugged in at the STL Sheraton, at approximately 1:45 a.m. Saturday morning. So I definitely know the "heart stopping" feeling!!

Which, BTW, they claim was never found. I have two batteries, the one that was plugged into the wall and the one that was in the camera that was being used throughout hte night. So I'm stuck with an almost dead battery, with NO charger. SHITE!